Continuity in History and Other Essays

This collection of essays by Alexander Gerschenkron, who has been called ＂the doyen of economic history in the United States,＂ is a companion volume to the author’s highly acclaimed Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective. The essays range over a wide variety of subjects, but the major theme, as in Gerschenkron’s previous book, is the conditions of industrial development, particularly in regard to nineteenth-century Europe.

The book is divided into three parts. In Part I, Methodology, the essays are: ＂On the Concept of Continuity in History,＂ ＂Some Methodological Problems in Economic History,＂ and ＂Reflections on Ideology as a Methodological and Historical Problem.＂ Part II, Problems in Economic History, deals with ＂The Typology of Industrial Development as a Tool of Analysis,＂ ＂The Industrial Development of Italy: A Debate with Rosario Romeo,＂ ＂The Modernization of Entrepreneurship,＂ ＂Russia: Agrarian Policies and Industrialization, 1861-1914,＂ and ＂City Economies Then and Now.＂ In Part III, The Political Framework, the essays are: ＂Reflections on the Economic Aspects of Revolution,＂ ＂The Changeability of a Dictatorship,＂ and ＂The Stability of Dictatorships.＂ A series of appendices presents reviews and review articles by Gerschenkron.